Can the shed be changed so that a standard size HDD can fit? Or will that mean the case can't be put back on?

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Nevermind.

Finally came across someone who opened a HR24. Apparently, they have six tabs that break easily. Not something I care to tackle. Was hoping for hidden screws.

As I understand it, I need to buy a special case to house a WD SATA 2TB HDD that will work with a DirecTV HR24-200. What are they? And which WD drive type is best for DVR'g?

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I've opened up so many HRs that I've lost count and I've never broken a clip. If you go gently there shouldn't be a problem.

The problem with the 24-200 (which is a superb 24) is the size of the sled. You cannot put a normal HDD on it without a lot of work. The dimensions are what makes it difficult. They made the sled for a Pipeline 500GB Seagate HDD and a normal HDD just won't fit.

I tried everything I could think of and nothing worked. To do a neat job I would have needed access to a machine shop. I have read posts about using wire ties to keep it in place on the sled but that seems sloppy and so does duct taping it to the sled. I read those posts and never saw any following posts telling us how that worked out.

In short, you'd be better off just buying a dock and mounting the HDD externally.

Quick question, when running GParted on the drives does it defragment the drive and remove empty spaces left by deleting programs?
Or is it a straight sector by sector copy?
If sector by sector, is there any advantage to GParted over a drive duplicator?
Thanks,
D&C

Some of the drives contain PUIS (Power up in stand buy) A thing to fix that is to get "HDAT2" and boot it. The drive will need to be connected to the internal eSATA or SATA port on the motherboard. then use parted magic and do a drive to drive clone with file zilla, or do a drive to image.

Just wanted to post about my experience. The original post recommends GParted (0.4.6-1). I went through this process last year when my external HDD started dying. With that version I get several invalid argument errors during the copy that resulted in working, but stuttery recordings. It's one of those things you think is better than losing your recordings, but after living with the remaining recordings for a year, I almost wish I hadn't bothered transferring them. They break up and drop audio just often enough to drive you nuts.

I'm going through this a second time on a different DVR, and was seeing the same error messages. No, no, no, not again! There was a suggestion to let the DVR do a small recording, but that made no change. I found a different post that suggested GParted 0.23.0-1. This version does not report errors during the copy. So they've clearly fixed some problem with the transfer. That version works solid, no glitches! So I would heartily recommend that version.

As for getting the case off, at least on my HR24-500, it's easier than you think. The clips require very little force to unlatch. The trick is getting opposing force on the case to start pulling it away once you've unlatched. Also you do NOT need to remove all the little torx screws on the back. The top comes off with just the clips. The HR24-500 has a low profile HDD in it, but a full size HDD fits in the bay fine.

There was a suggestion to let the DVR do a small recording, but that made no change. I found a different post that suggested GParted 0.23.0-1. This version does not report errors during the copy. So they've clearly fixed some problem with the transfer. That version works solid, no glitches! So I would heartily recommend that version.

Good afternoon
I stuck the old access card into the new receiver, called Directv, gave them the access card # and the receiver #. It activated. ...

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Has anyone else been able to accomplish this? I'm looking for at least one other person that can confirm using the old access card will allow playing the recordings in the new DVR. I want to upgrade a HR44 to a HR54 but don't want to lose all of my recordings...

Has anyone else been able to accomplish this? I'm looking for at least one other person that can confirm using the old access card will allow playing the recordings in the new DVR. I want to upgrade a HR44 to a HR54 but don't want to lose all of my recordings...

Thanks...

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I think you got enough of evidence to make same move. Got yourself in a knot and do it.

My first post. I can verifly a 10TB hard drive works with a HR44 Genie. I Went from a 6TB single drive to a 10TB single drive. Using the instructions here I copied the recording from the 6TB to the 10TB drive(Seagate Skyhawk). It went from 23% to 55% free space, taking slightly more than 13 hours to copy. By my math it was roughly 4.5TB of recrodings/files to copy. My Rosewill external enclosure worked fine with the smaller drive but would not work with the 10TB. So I used a esata to sata cable, connenting the sata end straight to the HD inside the enclosure , using only the power from the enclosure and bypassing the other circuits. Had to cut a small hole through the front panel of the enclosure for the sata cable to pass through. The HR44 has been working for several days with no issues in performance or reboots.

My first post. I can verifly a 10TB hard drive works with a HR44 Genie. I Went from a 6TB single drive to a 10TB single drive. Using the instructions here I copied the recording from the 6TB to the 10TB drive(Seagate Skyhawk). It went from 23% to 55% free space, taking slightly more than 13 hours to copy. By my math it was roughly 4.5TB of recrodings/files to copy. My Rosewill external enclosure worked fine with the smaller drive but would not work with the 10TB. So I used a esata to sata cable, connenting the sata end straight to the HD inside the enclosure , using only the power from the enclosure and bypassing the other circuits. Had to cut a small hole through the front panel of the enclosure for the sata cable to pass through. The HR44 has been working for several days with no issues in performance or reboots.

I just completed drive replacements on the following DVRs: HR21, HR24-200, and a HR34 and wanted to share my experiences. First of all, thanks to those who have posted before as the information was invaluable in getting through the issues I encountered.

Some general information first:

What prompted me to undertake this activity was the limited space presented by the small hard drives in the DTV DVRs. The result of drive space being maxed out manifested itself with very poor remote control response, DRV freezing, and poor recording quality (stuttering, etc.). Once I completed the drive swaps I was amazed at the increased responsiveness of the DVR to the remote commands and recording quality.

I used both the latest version (0.28.1.-1-i686) and the old version (0.3.7-7) of Gparted Live originally referenced in this topic. Assuming that you get a clean mount (i.e., no "can't read superblock" error) of the /dev/sdb2 device (your original –source- DTV hard drive) the 0.28.1.-1-i686 gives you a clean transfer with no reported errors or corrupted files.

The HR21s and the HR34 original drives presented the “can’t read superblock” error on the attempt to mount /dev/sdb2. This required the use of the xfs_repair command (xfs_repair -L -r /dev/sdb3 /dev/sdb2). This command will not run successfully with the newest Gparted (0.28.1.-1-i686) and I had to go back to the old (0.3.7-7) to successfully run the command.

Once the xfs_repair was complete I was able to successfully mount and then copy the /dev/sdb 2 & 3 partitions to /dev/sda using either version of Gparted. However, the old (0.3.7-7) version gives you a ton of errors and when I played back some of the copied programs I saw a lot of pixilation & “stuttering”. The new version of Gparted (0.28.1.-1-i686) gave me no errors and it appears that all of the files transfer cleanly.

Machine specific idiosyncrasies:

HR21’s – The -100 and -200 use different drive mounting brackets but both take full size drives NO GREATER THAN 2 TB (BIOS won't recognize the additional space). I used WD Green AV - WD20EURX (2TB) drives (1.8 TB usable)

HR24-200 The HR24-200 comes with a 500G Seagate “Pipeline” drive that is only about ¾” tall vs. 1” for a regular size drive. The regular size drive will not fit in the HR24-200 mounting bracket unless you make adapter plates with flat head 6/32" drive screws (I used standard truss brackets cut down & drilled so that the new drive would snug up in the HR24-200 bracket). NOTE – be sure that you have clearance under the new drive so it does not short against any of the components below on the motherboard. (see pictures of “Pipeline” drive (picture on left) comparison to standard drive (picture on right) and custom adapter plates on HR24 bracket) I used a WD Purple WD20PURXSP 2 TB drive (1.8 TB usable) The HR24 is also limited to 2TB max drive size.

HR34-700 This DVR comes with a 1TB drive and from what I read in this topic thread can be upgraded to 10 TB (or greater depending on newest drive technology). In my case I used one of the new WD Purple NV 4TB drives WD4NPURXSP (3.6 TB usable). There is plenty of room in the bracket for a standard size drive and it is an easy swap. The HR34 cabinet space is large so that drive heat should not be a problem with higher capacity drives.

While you did good job for making new bracket, I would recommend to use or re-use rubber bushes on bolts to reduce mechanical noise making by HDD moving parts (spindle, heads,etc) what passing to the construction include whole DVR metal box.

The only thing I see, you likely could have avoided needing to "fix"the drive by trying again on the u plugging of power during a reboot of the DVR. It's difficult to time right but you have to reboot it through the menu and then pull the power at just the right moment after it's fully shut down and before it begins powering back up. There's about 1 second to do it as I recall.

While you did good job for making new bracket, I would recommend to use or re-use rubber bushes on bolts to reduce mechanical noise making by HDD moving parts (spindle, heads,etc) what passing to the construction include whole DVR metal box.

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I agree that it would have been better to use the bushings but there was no space left

The only thing I see, you likely could have avoided needing to "fix"the drive by trying again on the u plugging of power during a reboot of the DVR. It's difficult to time right but you have to reboot it through the menu and then pull the power at just the right moment after it's fully shut down and before it begins powering back up. There's about 1 second to do it as I recall.

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I tried the restart sequence at least a dozen times on the HR21s - you have about 4 seconds to pull the power. I even watched/listened with the case covers off for the drive to spin down. I also built new HDDs from scratch and recorded 1 show as a test - all to no avail; could not get a clean mount on the HR21s without a xfs repair. The HR34 gives you less than a second before it restarts itself - even with the power off the big power supply capacitor has enough stored capacity to try to restart the machine so I gave up on soft restarts after two tries with it and did the xfs repair. I was only successful with the restart process on the HR24 - don't know why it worked and the others did not. Regardless, I got everything working via xfs repair & thanks to the info in this thread.

Ps. the drive in the picture is a dead unit I used for mock up purposes in fabricating the adapter plates. I would not recommend handling a good drive without taking precautions against static discharge damaging the drive.

I agree that it would have been better to use the bushings but there was no space left

I tried the restart sequence at least a dozen times on the HR21s - you have about 4 seconds to pull the power. I even watched/listened with the case covers off for the drive to spin down. I also built new HDDs from scratch and recorded 1 show as a test - all to no avail; could not get a clean mount on the HR21s without a xfs repair. The HR34 gives you less than a second before it restarts itself - even with the power off the big power supply capacitor has enough stored capacity to try to restart the machine so I gave up on soft restarts after two tries with it and did the xfs repair. I was only successful with the restart process on the HR24 - don't know why it worked and the others did not. Regardless, I got everything working via xfs repair & thanks to the info in this thread.

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Well either way I'm glad you got it working. I know it can be done because I've copied drives for HR20,21,24,34,44 and I've not had to do restore. But it wasn't easy! And maybe your drives where going bad and where slightly corrupted? Who knows. But it all worked out!

2.5 years later I used this procedure again to update from a WDC 4TB Green AV drive to a WDC Purple 8TB drive. I used .19 gparted because of the mentioned xfs_repair problem with the older version of XFS formatting used by DIRECTV and the newer XFS in the latest gparted. I tried to be careful shutting down but still could not mount without running xfs_repair with -L. 17 hours for a 90% full 4TB copy. No problems except the 17 hour wait, everything just as it should be. 56% free, I can experiment with mobile DVR now!

Several posts in this thread suggest that I should be able to copy HR44-500 data from an external 4TB dirve to an 8TB drive. However, when I run any version of Gparted, the partition manager is not able to recognize the xsf-rt partition as an xfs partition and reports it as an unknown file system. This is the largest partition, and contains the recorded programming I am trying to copy to the larger disk. I get the same results with any disk that I connect to the HR44. The disk is formatted by the HR44, but Gparted does not recognize two of the partitions as XSF, one of which is the xfs-rt partition. The HR44 does not hesitate when powering up with either the original 4TB disk or any of the formatted disk. No disk check is triggered, so it appears that the HR44 does not have any trouble reading the partitions that seem to be unknown. In the past, I’ve copied disks from my HR21 with no problem. I’ve also used versions of GParted from 2008 to the present, and none can identify the two unknown partitions below. I also know about timing the shutdown of the HR44 so that the disk is inactive. I doubt this problem is caused by any disk corruption. It is quite consistent.

GParted shows the partitions as follows

Has anyone experienced this issue, and have any insight into why Gparted might not recognize the HR44 partitions?

So it doesn’t do anything? I know I had copy files but then say after each there was an error, but there wasn’t any error.

However I believe I have had the same issue you are having if it won’t read it at all. And the solution was I wasn’t disconnecting power at just the right time to the hr44 as it was restarting through a menu restart. Evidently it’s writing to the drive during a reboot shutdown and you have to have that perfectly complete and not let it start waking back up either in order for it to work right. Just my experience. I had to listen very closely and unplug the unit after I heard the hard drive turn off. I think I held my ear to the thing... hope that helps.